Qld: Mixed feelings in "Skaseville" -- aka Port Douglas

AAP General News (Australia)
08-10-2001
Qld: Mixed feelings in "Skaseville" -- aka Port Douglas

By Steve Connolly

BRISBANE, Aug 10 AAP - "Skaseville" has mixed feelings about the death of Australia's
most wanted corporate crook.

Christopher Skase may have been a hounded fugitive during his decade in Majorca, but
his previous life in Australia was marked by big business deals and lavish parties among
the old white shoe brigade in Queensland.

Skase left Melbourne for Queensland in 1985 and the Qintex chairman was a key figure
in the glitz and glamour that was a feature of those heady times of the late 1980s in
the Sunshine State.

Qintex built resorts from the Gold Coast to Port Douglas, and even became a major sponsor
of the then Brisbane Bears Australian Rules club.

More than a decade later following his death from stomach cancer at the age of 52,
there were differing views among Queenslanders about a man who made such a big impact
in a relatively short time.

Port Douglas Tourist Association chairman Angelo Marras said Skase's Sheraton Mirage
Hotel, Mirage Marina and Mirage Country Club had put the far north Queensland township
- once dubbed "Skaseville" - on the tourist map.

Mr Marras said: "There's a love-hate relationship in the town. Most people are pleased
with what he did but there are some who don't not agree with the way he did it."

There was even talk of a memorial for Skase, but this suggestion was dismissed by Douglas
Shire mayor Mike Berwick.

Cr Berwick said most residents of Port Douglas were struggling to decide whether Skase
was a crook or a local benefactor.

"I think because of what's left behind he will be remembered very fondly by Port Douglas,"

he said.

Former Queensland premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, whose National Party was feted by
Skase, said the failed businessman did good things for Queensland "in the early days".

"Then he ended up in disaster," Sir Joh said.

Skase also had some sympathy from the Gold Coast, where former Australian Rules star
Warwick Capper remembered him as a down-to-earth guy driven to death by the Australian
government and the media.

"I think he's just a nice down-to-earth guy who had a good business brain but over-capitalised,"

Capper said.

The chief of two opulent Queensland resorts, built by Skase 15 years ago, also paid
tribute to his legacy.

"He had strong points and weaknesses. The weaknesses have been well documented. The
strong points are an ability to create something," said Mirage Resorts CEO Ric Cameron,
who runs the Sheraton Mirage hotels on the Gold Coast and at Port Douglas.

"At the end of the day you are left with two world class assets employing a thousand
Australians," he said. "No one could afford to build them now."

But Skase also had many enemies, particularly among creditors of the collapsed Qintex group.

His death this week sparked a flurry of letters to major newspapers, one of the most
scathing coming from Doug Wait, in the Brisbane Courier Mail, who wanted details of Skase's
burial so he could "book some dancing lessons and make the necessary travel arrangements".

AAP sc/ph/br

KEYWORD: NEWSCOPE QLD (NEWS ANALYSIS)

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